


Caught Urchins

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Dog, His Songbird, and His Urchins [1]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bargains, Caught, Crime & Punishment, Family, Finding a home, Fresh Start, Gen, New Beginning, Port Caynn, Series: Provost's Dog, Stealing, new home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 04:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14992895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Nestor catches Haden and Truda stealing. Set before Bloodhound.





	Caught Urchins

Caught Urchins

Haden Cracked Tooth (though the eyetooth he’d nicknamed himself for was missing rather than cracked, Cracked Tooth sounded more menacing than Missing tooth, and a lad had to be intimidating to survive running through the streets with his ragtag gang of urchins) had his coney, a merchant with a purse plump enough to buy Haden and his little sister their next three meals even after splitting profits with the gang swinging temptingly from a leather belt, marked. 

He checked in the window of a fabric shop he was passing to ensure that Truda—his younger sister and lookout—was following in his wake through the surging waves of the crowd in the bustling Port Caynn street as if the window were a mirror though he had never in his nine years gazed into a mirror. That was just as well, he supposed, since mirrors were designed for admiring pretty faces, and only a cracknob would believe Haden’s unwashed, unwanted urchin looks were a sight to do anything but cringe from fast as a storm blowing off the sea. 

Only when Truda, as dirty from top to toe as Haden was, caught his eye in the glass and winked did Haden slip behind his coney. In a slash of silver, he used his dagger to slice the merchant’s purse free from the belt to which it had been attached. Before the merchant who had enough money not to notice when it disappeared could have realized he was pick-pocketed, Haden drifted into the teems of people in the city street, all too intent on their own business to bother wth a worthless urchin like Haden. 

Tucking his filched purse along with his knife, Haden was shocked to discover that he wasn’t invisible to everyone when a Dog’s baton slammed sharply across his fingers, forcing him to drop his stolen purse and dagger into the Dog’s outstretched palm that didn’t contain the baton. Stars sparkled in Haden’s eyes as he bit back a yelp because he would be burned in oil before he revealed pain in front of a sarden Dog. His knuckles, curse the wretched baton-smashing Dog, would be a rainbow of bruises on the morrow, but at least none of his fingers felt broken. Thank the Trickster God of the crooked that looked after thieves in his own twisted way for small blessings. 

“My net seems to have caught a thieving urchin.” The Dog’s icy blue-gray eyes reminded Haden of the Emerald Ocean on a cold, overcast day, and it was hard for Haden to hear his stern voice over the pounding drum of his heart that announced mercilessly as a tolling funeral bell that Haden’s time running free on the streets was gone as last week’s moldered fish. 

In the store window behind the Dog, Haden spotted Truda’s reflection. Seeing Truda reassuringly poised to stroke with her knife, Haden hid a smirk at the thought that the Dog’s net had caught two thieving urchins behind a mask of panic so as not to alert the Dog to the fact that his backup had arrived. Faster than lightning darting across the summer sky, Truda sprang at the Dog from his flank, aiming for the exposed sunbaked skin of his neck. 

The Dog, who must’ve had eyeballs jutting from the back of his head, dodged the assault and slapped at Truda’s wrist with his baton forcefully enough not cause Haden to flinch from the sound of wood against flesh and bone. Surprised by the blow, her grip slackened on her dagger, which clattered to the cobblestones. 

“I’ve captured two very dangerous urchins whose faces have been described to me many times by robbery victims at my kennel.” The Dog trapped Haden’s right wrist in one hand while wielding his baton to dissuade Truda from snatching at her fallen blade for fear of shattered fingers. “I figure I ought to keep hold of you two before you kill someone.” 

“Ye can’t hobble us for something we haven’t done yet.” All of Haden’s terror of being nabbed—which had hovered as an eternal, eerie shadow in the back of his mind since he began cutting purses to fill his and his sister’s grumbling bellies—howled out of him as he twisted, frantic as a hooked fish, to escape the Dog’s clutches. 

“I caught you pick-pocketing, boy, and your lookout pulled steel on me.” The Dog’s grip on Haden’s wrist was iron as any manacle in the Port Caynn cages Haden had no doubt he was about to be hauled off to with Truda. “You could be sent to the quarries, and she could be hanged for attacking the law.” 

“Kill us then.” Haden spat in the Dog’s face, savagely pleased that the Dog didn’t have a hand available to swipe away the saliva. The quarries were a slow death sentence, and Haden half-hoped that he could infuriate the Dog enough to slit Haden’s throat before he could be sent to die in dreamless drudgery. “We wouldna been out here stealin’ if we got enough to eat but go ahead and hang us for that.” 

That struck Haden as a Dog’s idea of justice, but when the Dog answered, he was introduced to the foreign concept that was a Dog’s notion of mercy. “That’s what will happen if you continue to resist me, lad, but if you come away quietly, we might be able to reach an understanding.” 

“Ye want a gold kiss?” Haden stopped struggling and stared calculatingly up at the Dog. A bribe would be expensive but Haden could probably afford it even with the loss of the purse he had been trying to lift if he went without a few meals. 

“No.” A flicker of a smile crossed the Dog’s flinty features. “I want you and your accomplice to be my eyes, ears, and legs for me in the city in exchange for food, shelter, and tips for what chores I can find you at my lodgings.” 

“Ye want us to be Birdies ye pay to sing to ye?” Haden’s forehead knotted as he failed to make sense of why a Dog would want to drag filthy gutter urchins like him and Truda into his doubtlessly squeaky clean house. The bargain the Dog was offering appeared too promising to be true, suggesting that it was as false as a doxie’s murmured love. 

“I want you to tail people I order you to spy on and run messages for me in addition to helping out at my house.” The Dog hadn’t released Haden but his hold was loose enough that Haden could have bolted if he wasn’t so intrigued by the Dog’s peculiar proposal. 

“Don’t ye Dogs have runners for yer messages?” Truda’s eyes smoldered with suspicion. 

“Yes.” The Dog nodded. “None of our runners can navigate the city streets as deftly as you urchins, though.” 

“Who are ye?” Truda sounded torn between wariness and hope at having a home more permanent than the streets . “Ma taught us not to go home with strangers afore she and Da died in a winter chill.” 

“I’m Nestor Haryse.” The Dog relinquished his grip on Haden to extend his hand to Truda for shaking in a gesture that hammered into Haden’s head that although the man according to the ever-churning Port Caynn rumor mill was born on the wrong side of the bed, he was still of noble blood. Even in a bastard, nobility showed. “Day Watch Sergeant of the Deep Harbor District.” 

“They say in the streets that ye’re a bastard but an honest one.” Truda was frowning at the sergeant’s proffered hand as if unsure what to do with it. 

“A flattering description.” The sergeant arched an eyebrow. “Do we have an agreement then?” 

Haden hesitated as the urge to flee with his sister ripped through him with the power of a wave at high tide. 

As if he could read Haden’s desire to dash off with Truda, the sergeant pointed out, crisp as sand crunching under shoes, “Didn’t you claim that you only took to stealing to fill your stomach, lad?” 

“Aye.” Haden, gaze as earnest as an abandoned puppy’s, was determined not to be caught in such an obvious lie. “I couldn’t become a mumper, could I? It’d hurt me pride to beg, and Da always said pride is all that’s left to us poor riffraff. Stealing is work even if it isn’t honest work and that satisfies me pride.” 

“I’m offering you honest work to fill your stomach.” The sergeant’s tone was so tart that Haden could taste lemon he had only been able to cobble together the coins to sample with his sister once in his lifetime. “That ought to satisfy your pride even more than stealing.” 

“We’ll come with ye.” Haden shook the sergeant’s hand since Truda plainly wasn’t going to do so. “We’ll work for ye but the tips better be good, sir.” 

“Excellent. This should be the beginning of a profitable partnership for both sides.” The sergeant shepherded Haden and Truda before him as if to prevent them from vanishing from his sight before they reached his lodgings. 

Haden prayed to the Wave Walker—even though he wasn’t handsome enough to have a sweet spot in the goddess’s affections—that the partnership would indeed be profitable for him and his sister, but he was ready to run if it soured. Brushing against Truda, he hissed in the shell of her ear, “We work for but we bolt in a blink at the first sign that he’s played us false.” 

“Of course we do.” Truda elbowed him in the ribs. “Ye don’t need to tell me that. I wasn’t born yesterday.”


End file.
